High schools across Northeastern Wisconsin are set to experience conference realignment for the upcoming school year.

The realignment plan, which was approved in December 2013 by the WIAA board of control, involves 84 schools and nine conferences.

It will be the first large-scale realignment plan put into effect for the area by the WIAA in eight years.

The eight-year time frame could become the standard for when future realignments occur.

“This fall at our area meetings, we are going to be discussing with our member schools the idea of an eight-year realignment rotation, which would be statewide,” WIAA associate director Deb Hauser said. “Every eight years it would be looked at and any changes that needed to be made would be made on a statewide basis.”

The WIAA fall area meetings take place across the state in September. The meeting for Northeastern Wisconsin schools will be held Sept. 23 at Fox Valley Lutheran High School in Appleton.

Having a set time frame could streamline the realignment process.

“We threw this out a little bit last year,” said Hauser, who is currently undertaking the development of a plan for large-scale realignment for schools in southeastern Wisconsin.

“We have had many schools quite receptive to the idea. It would be a little more organized rather than this randomness of this school wanting it, this school wanting it, that school wanting it and the whole area potentially being turned over because of a couple schools.”

The conference realignment taking place for the 2015-16 school year in Northeastern Wisconsin was first put into play at the 2011 and 2012 fall area meetings, when administrators from Green Bay West and Green Bay East made requests to be moved out of the Fox River Classic Conference.

West and East will move to the Bay Conference this year as part of the realignment plan for the area.

“It took about three or four years to make it happen,” Green Bay Preble athletic director Dan Retzki said. “It didn’t happen in a year, that is for sure. I would support anything that is best for schools. Is it an eight-year plan? I don’t know.

“Each school develops issues that alter their participation rates and maybe sports decline. Eight years is a long time. Something could develop in three years that would want a school to change.”

Although how and when future realignments will be done still needs to be debated, most athletic directors and coaches agree there needs to be a change from the current process.

“I think an eight-year plan is a great idea,” Wrightstown football coach Matt Binsfeld said.

“It should be a regular re-evaluation versus (schools) trying to lobby their way in and out of a conference. You should just set the schedule and say that’s where we are at for eight years. I was thinking to myself that 10 years might have been fine. But I think five, eight, 10, whatever, it is sounds better than our current system.”

Marinette athletic director Kurt Gundlach added: “I think (a time period) is a smart way to do it because there are certain communities where there is growth within the community or a lack of growth. A five- to eight-year period you would be able to project a little bit closer where those things would happen.”

Hauser said a timetable for possible statewide realignment wouldn’t necessarily mean every school or area would undergo changes when a realignment year would come up. Schools and conferences may be left alone if there aren’t projected enrollment gaps or competitive differences on the horizon.

“The only hesitation is you can never really tell the numbers that far down the line,” Coleman athletic director Jeff Bronson said.

Hauser said a concern she has for any type of realignment is the costs associated with it for schools to purchase new banners or signs to reflect conference affiliation.

“It’s obviously not cheap,” Green Bay West athletic director Josh Murnane said about purchasing new banners. “But it’s something that if you know ahead of time that every eight years your conference might change, and it might not, it’s something you can budget for and plan ahead a little bit.”

Coming this week

Press-Gazette Media sports reporter Andrew Pekarek goes over realignment changes for the 2015-16 school year in a series of five stories focused on area conferences.